Tattoo Time

Since this week I’ll be starting a new tattoo – my first new ink in about 12 years – this comic seemed appropriate. Also, Bear's dialog in that last panel is verbatim from a conversation I had last week with a good friend of mine. And no, I didn’t say it.

The process this time was a bit different, as I’m sure you can tell from the end result. All of the previous comics here were inked digitally, but this one was inked on paper. Previously, I created pencil layouts on bristol paper, scanned them and then inked digitally in Photoshop. I have a great Wacom pen tablet and wouldn’t be able to draw digitally without it, but I realized it is also a bit of a crutch. When inking digitally I have the luxury of just hitting undo and removing any line that isn’t perfect. The perfectionist in me naturally takes over and I end up drawing and redrawing the same line four, five or six times before I get it just right. This is great on one hand because I get really clean and crisp lines. On the other, it is extremely time consuming. And while I like those really clean lines I also miss the tactile feel of ink on paper. Hand inking feels like it has more life and more character, perhaps because of the flaws, and it is certainly more fun to draw. Todays comic was penciled and inked on bristol paper. Color and dialog were then added digitally. It was much faster and will allow me to publish three or more comics a week.

I’ll be tightening up a few things and working the kinks out in the next few comics. I hope you like this one as much as some of the others I’ve posted, and if you don’t I would really like to hear your feedback.